It's been some time since I last covered the C Street NE Rehabilitation Project. In that time DDOT has held three meetings and presented three new designs for the road, which will include grade separated cycletracks. GGW has a long write up on it, but basically, they presented a 65% design in February that got extensive community buy in, but unbeknownst to everyone, DDOT staff identified problems with the traffic analysis. The next month they recommended some changes based on the traffic analysis and presented those in April. At which point the various stakeholders expressed dismay, to put it politely (ANC 6A voted unanimously in opposition to it, for example). DDOT went back to the drawing board and came back with an update in June that seems to have less opposition.

That's not to say it has no opposition. ANC 6A had a few concerns. They worry the new design is less safe, because it will allow higher speeds. They worry that in order to reduce congestion at rush hour, they are creating a street that will encourage speeding for the rest of the day. And they were unhappy with the sudden change in design.

Some of their more specific concerns were that

They don't like the way the sidewalk on the southside of C crosses 17th at a diagonal

They want no right turn on red in the school zone (near Elliot-Hine).

They would like left turn signals for Eastbound at Nineteenth (19th) Street NE andWestbound at Seventeenth (17th) Street NE

They want the lane width to be capped at 10' (some of the lanes are 11')

On the 1900 block of C Street NE, DDOT has proposed a row of flex-poststo separate the bicycle lane from the parking lane. They'd like the bicycle lane be raised above the parking lane, creating a permanent barrier between cyclists and parking/traffic.

They want raised and textured crosswalks

They would like a bike box on the south side of 19th facing north

They believe the bus stops in the westbound direction should load in the travel lane, rather than pulling-in to a bus stop.

The permanent barrier is a good idea, one many people brought up and one that I think Sam Zimbabwe wrote down during the meeting. As I recall, raising the bicycle lane is problematic though. It involves relocating the existing drainage inlets. That's expensive and can disturb the root system of the existing trees since it requires excavation. That's not something that's insurmountable but there is a high cost for that benefit.

There is some controversy about the validity of the traffic analysis with Toole Design, the original contractor, expressing a belief that no modifications from the February design were needed. I can't say. But I do think that the time when the ANC and other stakeholders needed to find out that a change was coming was in February, not April. They should have had a stakeholder meeting, presented their analysis and talk to them about some of the ideas they were considering to address the report. People can handle change, but they don't like surprises.

The April design didn't really change things for cyclists, but to their credit WABA got involved and advocated for a more Vision Zero friendly design because they didn't think it protected pedestrians enough. Pedestrian safety may not be in their vision statement, but as a member I'm glad to see them widen their scope in this case. Ironically the June design does make the cycletrack slightly worse (between 19th and 20th)

Most of the changes from February to June are on the north side and I'll highlight a few.

In order to get two lanes through the transition to C, the green space to the NE of 16th and C had to be narrowed and that resulted in moving the cycletrack a little. I like the new placement better than the old one.

On the north side, the cycletrack between 20th and 19th was raised above the street level and separated by a green buffer. In the new design, cyclists will drop down to street level west of 20th and then back up west 19th; and they'll be separated from parking by road markings and flexiposts.

The designs not perfect. I'd rather see some dedicated bus lanes for example. But it is a big improvement and the suggestions from ANC 6A would make it better. I still look forward to them making this road better.

One of the most important changes to cyclists is that the bulk of funding for construction of the Metropolitan Branch Trail ($11M) was placed in 2019 signaling that DDOT plans to start construction on L&M Streets and Fort Totten soon.

Meanwhile the "Safety Improvements Citywide" program, which pays for things like lighting, safety studies, roadway improvements (like at Blair Circle) and such received an addition $918,000 in SPR and local funding. This comes on top of previous increases that more than doubled funding for the program. They also added millions for additional streetlight upgrades citywide, which is nice for those who bike at night.

Though not a change, DDOT plans to reconstruct C Street NE with a cycletrack in 2019. In the same year they will perform more construction on Pennsylvania Ave SE/Potomac Circle/Barney Circle which includes improving "pedestrian and bicycle access to the Sousa Bridge and along proposed Southeast Boulevard to the 11th Street Bridges." They also have more than $11M set aside for construction of the South Capital Street Trail, $3.5M for the trail bridge across the Anacostia at the National Arboretum, $14M to replace the bike/ped bridges over Kenilworth Avenue, $27M for improvements to Southern Avenue

In 2018, they have funds set aside to rebuild Virginia Avenue (which they're currently doing) with a new Virginia Avenue Trail on the south side. There's also more than $10M for the Rock Creek Park Trail rehabilitation project, and $19M for the Maryland Avenue road diet.

The reconstruction of South Capitol Street and a new more bike-friendly Frederick Douglass Bridge, which just started, gets oodles of money over multiple years as does "multimodal" roadway improvements around St. Elizabeths.

Oddly, there's $3.3M in the TIP for construction of the New York Avenue Trail in 2017. I don't think that happened.

Many of the programs that support cycling in part or in whole, like goDCgo, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Management Program, Safe Routes to School, Roadway Reconstruction, Transportation Alternatives, and the National Recreational Trails will continue to be funded as before.

There's also $500k in planning money to improve Aspen Street NW from Georgia Avenue NW to 16th Street NW to include new turn lanes and a multi-use trail on the north side of the street to support the Walter Reed redevelopment.

As bicycling has become more accessible and visible, people who generally would not consider bicycling have become aware of the benefits and are joining the growing number of people using the bicycle network. The compact nature of DC means that many destinations are within a distance reasonable for cycling. With the bicycle system becoming a viable option for travel, it needs to complement other forms of transportation, which is a key component to the C Street NE project. The project will present several critical design issues. One of the biggest challenges will be the introduction of a separated cycle tracks on both sides of the road. These bicycle facilities are separated from the vehicle lanes by parking lanes and greenspace. They are considered a “low stress” cycling experience because cyclists do not have to share the road with vehicles and are less prone to dooring (a cyclist colliding with the opening of a vehicle door.)

The proposed design will use a road diet and road reconfiguration to place greenspace and/or parking between cyclists and other traffic.

Cyclists will cross at a raised crosswalk that is part of an Alternative Combined Crosswalk

The protected bike lanes (PBL) on C will unzip when it reaches North Carolina Ave NE,with PBLs on the east-bound side of North Carolina and on west-bound C Street and a bike lane on the west-bound side of North Carolina.

The 7' wide PBL will pass behind the bus stops and at 21st transition to the existing trails and sidewalks.

First of all, there's a meeting tonight on the C Street, NE rehabilitation. This project aims to - among other things - bring cycletracks to C Street, NE. The 30% design was released earlier this month and "at the meeting, the 30% design plans will be discussed to further refine the recommendations provided during the final design phase." That meeting is tonight from 6-8pm at Rosedale Community Center.

In addition, last night there was a meeting on the VRE Midday Storage project that "as envisioned, would preclude long-term plans for a multi-use trail on New York Ave between Eckington and the National Arboretum." But they're promising not to let that happen and their more recent designs give more reasons to be hopeful.

Update: Bike Specific has a good recap of this meeting.

While VRE still plans to use the Union Market tunnel to connect to the yard, VRE clarified its preliminary design regarding the relationship between the yard and New York Avenue by apparently reducing the required space.

Tonight there is also a meeting on the Rock Creek Park Multi-use Trail and Pedestrian Bridge over Rock Creek. The meeting will be an open house format with a brief presentation given by staff that will begin at 6:30 pm. Staff will be on hand to walk attendees through the concepts presented. It will be at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park Visitor’s Center. The purpose of the meeting is "to discuss the final design concepts of the Rock Creek Park Multi-use Trail and Pedestrian Bridge over Rock Creek. The goal of this project is to rehabilitate Rock Creek Park Multi-use Trail and Pedestrian Bridge to improve safety and visitor experience, as well as establish new connections to Rock Creek Park from the surrounding neighborhoods."